What is the relationship of social justice to Christianity?

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@anon61138028

Christians don’t need the government, or the media, or pop culture to tell us how we should treat people.

Segregation in the South was supported by Christians in the South. It only ended because of laws passed by the US government.

[jpm (Phil McCurdy)]

I would suggest that the Beatitudes are a bit more appropriate for a social justice monument, but the Ten Commandments are not a bad list of things for government to support, aside from the problematic church -state issue. As someone I read pointed out, #10 (Do not covet…) pretty much covers everything.

[MarkD (A Whateverist, not a Christian)]

@jpm

but the Ten Commandments are not a bad list of things for government to support, aside from the problematic church -state issue.

I wonder if Christians could get behind government sponsored multi cultural public messaging around the value of valuing neighbors and their many approaches to the sacred? Maybe a tide that lifts all boats is the best any should expect?

@jpm

As someone I read pointed out, #10 (Do not covet…) pretty much covers everything.

Geez .. I wish I had said that. I really, really, really do.

[beaglelady]

@anon61138028

“Social Justice” as it is thought of today is about as far from real Christianity as one can get. Real Christianity is about a personal relationship and personal accountability to God. That just doesn’t fit with human created narratives on social justice…

Personal accountability? The kind that the prophets and Jesus talked about? Our responsibility to our fellow humans?

[Kendel]

Bummer. It was spot on.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

I beg to differ. Segregation was started by the Civil War. A hundred years of Jim Crow, the vilest of sick crimes by demonic white supremacists. With my apologies to the demons. I got my wires crossed.

[Kendel]

As I must also have done; I only got a brief glimps.

However, segregation was earlier than the CW. Maybe not by that name and with less signage, but it was alive and well. Apartheid takes many forms, and we’ve practiced them all.
These demons deserve no apology from you or anyone else. It’s way past time to exorcise every last one of them.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

The white human male metaphorical demons that give any fictitious demons a bad name. The way God the Killer does Satan.

Jesse Washington.
The Tulsa hundred(s).
Emmett Till.

RIP.

And yes, segregation is implicit in slavery, slavery and genocide are its most explicit forms. The downside to our spectacular evolutionary success.

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Kendel

However, segregation was earlier than the CW. Maybe not by that name and with less signage, but it was alive and well. Apartheid takes many forms, and we’ve practiced them all.

Classism was alive and well throughout Europe for many centuries, as was discrimination against foreign religions and cultures. Discrimination against the other seems to be a long standing human problem.

On a more positive note, I am greatly encouraged by many churches in the US who have supported the legalization of gay marriage and the rights of homosexuals to be a part of society. There are still rough patches as we all sort things out, but there seems to have been a shift in viewpoint where empathy and fairness was recognized and put into action. We can disagree, but that disagreement shouldn’t unnecessarily restrict freedoms. IOW, people should be able to live their life how they want as long as it doesn’t prevent others from doing the same. To be quite honest, 20 years ago I didn’t think we would be where we are now as a society.

[Paraleptopecten (Timothy Campbell)]

@MarkD

I wonder if Christians could get behind government sponsored multi cultural public messaging around the value of valuing neighbors and their many approaches to the sacred?

If they are paying attention, yes. Otherwise, if the right party promotes it, yes.

[beaglelady]

@anon61138028

You seem to be saying that Jesus and the prophets didn’t talk about caring for the needy.

Huh? I don’t know where you got that idea. Jesus and the prophets talked about accountability. Look at the parable of the sheep and the goats.

[Klax (The only thing that matters is faith expressed in love.)]

@anon61138028

@T_aquaticus

@anon61138028

Christians don’t need the government, or the media, or pop culture to tell us how we should treat people.

Segregation in the South was supported by Christians in the South. It only ended because of laws passed by the US government.

That is extremely misleading. SOME Christians supported segregation, but many didn’t. IIRC, it was progressives and democrats that pushed for segregation the hardest. Regardless, the solution didn’t come out of secular society, it came out of Christian principles.

But all this entirely misses my point that the MODERN social justice movement is about power and control and not about helping the poor and less fortunate.

They are synonymous. The poor and less fortunate are deprived of power and control by the rich and their bourgeoise lackeys. The working class majority are made complicit by getting blood on their hands. In the army. And the police.

And MOST southern Christians not only obviously supported segregation, they fully supported slavery from the top down. How many of this mob of fifteen thousand good ole boys weren’t Christian?

Do you know how that good Christian Columbus celebrated Easter?

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@anon61138028

IIRC, it was progressives and democrats that pushed for segregation the hardest.

It was conservative democrats from the South that pushed for segregation.

@anon61138028

Regardless, the solution didn’t come out of secular society, it came out of Christian principles.

That’s hard to fathom since segregationists cited Christian principles as the basis for segregation.

@anon61138028

But all this entirely misses my point that the MODERN social justice movement is about power and control and not about helping the poor and less fortunate.

That is your opinion.

[Mervin_Bitikofer]

@Klax

Do you know how that good Christian Columbus celebrated Easter?

I’ll bite … how did Columbus celebrate Easter?

[Buzzard]

@anon61138028

The modern social justice movement has little to do with God. It is primarily a strategy for one group to exercise power over another. If you do not accept the diversity, inclusion, equity and wokeness narrative as it is marketed you are ostracized and cancelled.

I feel your pain, brother. In the Catholic Church to which I belong, “social justice” has been doing a very good impression of cultural Marxism for several decades now. The Loony Left hijacked mainstream Catholicism after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and it remains in that degenerate state today.

For example, I distinctly remember about fifteen years ago here in Australia a certain conservative university lecturer in political-science describing the St. Vincent de Paul Society’s Social Justice Statement as “classical Marxism”.

Bonkers. Welcome to the Great Apostasy (2Thess 2), I say.

[T_aquaticus (The Friendly Neighborhood Atheist)]

@Buzzard

I feel your pain, brother. In the Catholic Church to which I belong, “social justice” has been doing a very good impression of cultural Marxism for several decades now. The Loony Left hijacked mainstream Catholicism after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and it remains in that degenerate state today.

Could you give specific examples, and why it is Marxism?

[beaglelady]

@anon61138028

Jesus and the prophets talked about personal accountability to God AND about our responsibility to care for others, yet it appears you separated them in your question. Maybe I misunderstood, and that is why I asked.

Yes, you misunderstood me.

[beaglelady]

@Klax

Do you know how that good Christian Columbus celebrated Easter?

Probably with some atrocity against natives.

[beaglelady]

@Buzzard

I feel your pain, brother. In the Catholic Church to which I belong, “social justice” has been doing a very good impression of cultural Marxism for several decades now. The Loony Left hijacked mainstream Catholicism after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) and it remains in that degenerate state today.

Do you reject Vatican 2 ? Are you a Traditionalist?

[HRankin (Hillary Rankin)]

You’re welcome to continue this conversation, I’m just unlisting it for now since it’s not quite in our usual intersection. Thanks